This Japanese commercial for Chrono Trigger DS is incredibly cute and, unlike the game, totally original. It depicts the Chrono Trigger gang hopping out of a Super Famicom and encountering a DS -- which Ayla refers to as "that white thing" before asking if she can eat it. Marle announces that everyone should go in. They probably wouldn't if they knew they were going to have to endure more dungeons, but oh well.
After the break, we've posted a second, much more traditional Chrono Trigger commercial that doesn't do quite as much damage to the fourth wall. It's still pretty exciting!
Most people know all about Chrono Trigger. They've tackled the challenges presented in what many would consider one of the greatest games ever made. So, why should those of you who have bested the game in the past pick up the new DS remake? Apparently, it's going to have a brand new ending!
We were already sold on the game when it was announced, being the huge DS and RPG fans that we are, but perhaps this will be enough to get a few of you down from on top of that fence? If not, have you read up on the other new features?
Posted Nov 10th 2008 1:06PM by JC Fletcher Filed under: News
Amazon is allowing us to bypass the infamous Square Enix Tax for one day, and pick up a fantastic RPG remake at the kind of prices normally reserved for wholesale merchants like Torneko Taloon. The game, of course, is Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen, and the price is a powerfully tempting $19.98.
If you've wanted to try the beloved series, but feared the investment would be too much for an RPG that turned out to be too old-school, now is your chance. It might be worth $20 just to look at, and then kill, a bunch of adorable slimes!
Update: Wow, we can be pretty boneheaded sometimes. We prematurely ended the contest and chose a winner, thinking it ended on Sunday night, as per our usual routine. This latest contest, however, wasn't supposed to end until the evening of Tuesday, October 28th. We apologize for the mistake and will be leaving the contest open, selecting the winner at random again, after it has officially concluded. Sorry to everyone involved, we'll do our best to avoid this mistake in the future. Please ignore all of that at the bottom.
Our latest giveaway has come to a close, so it's about time we crowned a winner, right? Who's the lucky individual walking away with a free copy of Kirby Super Star Ultra? Well, it's none other than:
Atlus will publish Interchannel's DS remakes of the endlessly remade first two Ys games to North America next year. Japanese gamers are pretty familiar with Falcom and their venerable ARPG series, but it never really caught on outside of Japan, despite a decent number of releases making it over here on the Sega Master System, Turbografx-16 CD-Rom, Super NES, and other systems.
How familiar are you with Ys? Did you pass over the Virtual Console release in anticipation of the announcement of this DS game? Did that recent release pique your curiosity about the series? Or has Atlus's involvement gotten your attention? Alternately, you love these two games so much that you'll pick them up on every available system?
Kirby Super Star Ultra is the best of the traditional Kirby games (by which I mean the ones that don't feature Kirby as a ball). It features more abilities and more moves than pretty much any other Kirby game, and the levels are more varied in their design. It manages to still be the best traditional Kirby game, despite the fact that it was released in its original form on the Super NES. The new content certainly hasn't done it any favors, and, like all Kirby games, it won't provide much of a challenge, but Super Star Ultra remains as clever as it was in 1996, and completely worth every platform fan's time.
Square Enix has released screenshots of the new content in Chrono Trigger DS, including the two dungeons. Above is a screen of the most bizarre of the additions, the monster arena. In this mode you can control 50 different types of monsters and power them up to battle others. There's not too much that can be gleaned from a picture of two monsters facing off -- for example, whether combat is controlled by the player or determined entirely by the stats of each monster.
The dungeons include Dimensional Distortion, which spans across three time periods in one trippy dungeon, and the Dragon Sanctuary, which we hope wasn't a gimmick name. This dungeon takes place in the past and involves taking on quests to help the Reptites.
Rejigged versions of both Brain Age games will be available for the Nintendo DSi when the upgraded handheld launches. Brain Age 1 and 2 will be the first titles available from the DSi shop, according to Nintendo name-taker Reggie Fils-Aime, who also revealed that each will feature DSi functionality of some kind.
In truth, Nintendo couldn't have settled on a safer two titles to launch the DSi store, with both games having sold a quite obscene number of copies in all regions (particularly Europe). The lack of risk-taking involved on Nintendo's part is disappointing to us, though there's plenty of time for innovative games to follow. Bet they don't fix the voice recognition, though.
Next week, Dragon Quest IV hits, bringing with it the possibility of the massive franchise finally taking off for real in the US in a way it hasn't since the original Dragon Warrior. Here, Final Fantasy is bigger, but in Japan, this is the real IV.
Have you been following Chapters of the Chosen? Are you interested in playing along with the adventures of Torneko Taloon and the rest of the cast? If so, will this be the first Dragon Quest for you? How about the first Dragon Quest IV? Did you get it back on the NES?
Square Enix's recent remake of RPG classic Final Fantasy IV turned a lot of heads. Most found the title to be quite enjoyable. Having done our part and reviewed the game, it's now time we perform the most painful part of our job: give it away to one lucky reader. What must you do to get your hands on this copy of Final Fantasy IV (retails for $40)? Simply leave a comment telling us if you've played the original game or not between now and Wednesday, September 17th at 11:59PM ET, after which we'll choose one lucky winner via random drawing. Entrants may leave one comment per day.
There are a few things you should know before entering. Entrants must be current and legal residents of the United States or Canada (excluding Quebec) and at least 18 years of age or older. Read up on the rest of the official rules right here. Good luck!
If the DS were to be the recipient next game in any existing RPG series, what would you want that to be? And before you rush for the comments form, let's make you think a little bit by eliminating the obvious Nintendo-fan answer: we assume everyone wants Mother, so think of something else!
One of Rare's overworked carrier pigeons just landed on our windowsill, bringing with it some candy crucial news: Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise will be launching across North America on September 2nd, in Europe on September 5th, and in the rest of the world beginning September 11th. That's exciting enough (and hey: really soon), but that's not where the happy news ends: Rare also took the time to film a second spoof video for its game, again poking fun at the terribly serious Halo 3 teasers from 2007. You can watch the first after the break (and please do watch it if you haven't already).
Release dates here "Museum" video here Our Rare interview here
When not debating the potential price tag for Chrono Trigger, you can pretty much find us scribbling hearts with Chrono Trigger in them within the confines of our sketchbook. To say we're excited would be quite the understatement. And now we're even more excited that we have a sliver of new info about the proposed wireless mode that was revealed last month.
Sadly, that's really all we have right now. The wireless mode will support two players, but in terms of what those two players will take part in is anyone's guess. We're kind of leaning toward co-op play, like possible in Secret of Mana. Either that or some kind of dungeon rush mode or whatever.
If you were put in charge of creating a Mass Effectgame on the DS, how would you do it? There are many ways to take an existing franchise and make a handheld game out of it, and basically the decision comes down to whether to make a shrunken-down version of the original game style or to make a completely new game.
Would you make a 2D version of the original game, like Xenosaga I&II? A smaller side story with vaguely similar gameplay, like Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles? Would you dare to make a lower-polygon port? Or would you make a totally different game in the same universe, as Konami is doing with Elebits? How about the exact same game, but redone as an English trainer?
By the way, if you actually have been put in charge of a Mass Effect DS game, hi! We'd love to talk to you.
Posted Aug 7th 2008 11:27AM by JC Fletcher Filed under: News
We've got good news and bad news regarding N+, Atari's handheld update of the freeware platformer N. The bad news isn't all that bad and the good news is awesome.
First, the kinda bad: N+ appears to have been delayed again, from August 12 to August 26. While it troubles us to think that the game is just never going to come out, we're glad it's at least not coming out on the same day as Bangai-O Spirits. The good news is that N+ will now launch at $20, which is an insanely good deal for a new, polished N with hundreds of new levels and a stylus-based level editor.
There's a third bit of news too, which didn't really fit in the "good news/bad news" thing we were trying to do, though it falls into the "good" category: Amazon orders will include a download link for a digital strategy guide.
Rejigged versions of both Brain Age games will be available for the 
If you were put in charge of creating a 
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